Alliances

Kerian saw him jerk back then fall as if struck by an arrow. Her mouth opened, but she knew she mustn’t make a sound, just as she knew Nalaryn was going to die on the rocky floor of the narrow canyon below. Horror turned to astonishment when she saw Nalaryn’s foot catch in the net. Immediately she and the others braced themselves, but his back still slammed into the spire. His weight jerked the female elf next to him off the aerie. With an astonishing midair twist, she caught the bottommost slab of the aerie as she fell. Nalaryn was not so fortunate. The impact had knocked him unconscious and he hung upside down, foot entangled in the net, below her.

All of them waited for the griffon to spring out and tear them to pieces. It did not. Silence continued to reign over their high perch. Relieved but with hearts pounding, Kerian and the last elf with her on the aerie lowered Nalaryn to the elves below. The two of them moved toward each other, causing the center of the net, where Nalaryn was snagged, to sag down. The female elf who been pulled off by Nalaryn’s fall descended with him, keeping him from hitting the stone spire.

Kerian and a Kagonesti called Breakbow watched as Nalaryn was disentangled and taken to safety. Then they climbed to the rim and carefully raised their heads high enough to see over.

No wonder Nalaryn had been shocked. But Kerian had seen Eagle Eye, her Royal griffon, in just such a pose, deeply asleep, yet with his eyelids half open.

“Asleep,” she mouthed, barely making a sound.

She and Breakbow parted, working their way to opposite sides of that end of the aerie. Lifting the leading edge of the net as high as possible, they sidled forward, bringing it over the sleeping griffon. So close to the beast, they had to take even more care to make no noise, yet every gust of wind was like a slap in the face, and arms and legs were exhausted after the long, slow climb.

At last they completed the traverse. Ropes were attached to the edge of the net and sent down to the Kagonesti waiting below. Kerian and Breakbow returned to the west side of the nest, the side they had climbed, to anchor that side of the net. Once all were in position, Kerian gave the command.

“Now!”

The elves in the canyon below hauled on the ropes. Simultaneously, Kerian and Breakbow braced their feet on the cliff face and pulled on their side of the net. The griffon trumpeted in alarm. Its powerful hindquarters worked as it tried to launch itself skyward, but the net had it trapped, and it toppled forward.

“Keep pulling!” Kerian shouted. She and Breakbow released their hold while the Kagonesti in the canyon continued to pull, and the griffon’s own momentum carried it headfirst over the side of the acne. Yodeling in distress, it plunged down the sloping rock face. Elves scattered ahead of it, and it landed with a heavy thud. Kerian prayed they hadn’t killed it.

They had not. Although stunned by the fall, the griffon was very much alive. The Kagonesti had wrapped it well with the rope, and Porthios was studying the captured beast as Kerian and Breakbow reached the bottom of the spire. The griffon’s baleful eye darted from one elf to another, always focusing on whomever was speaking. Its unblinking attention was unsettling. The Kagonesti sidled away, out of its line of sight, leaving only Hytanthas, Kerian, and Porthios near the enraged beast.

“Very good,” Porthios said. “When we have as many griffons as we can manage, I will perform the tath-maniya.”

Kerian had never heard the term, but Hytanthas said, “The Keeping of the Skyriders? That’s from the days of Silvanos Goldeneye, isn’t it? The chronicle of my ancestor, Tamanier Ambrodel, mentions the rite to tame griffons magically.”

“One forgets yours is an ancient and noble lineage.”

Hytanthas bristled at Porthios’s casually rude tone, but Kerian shot the young elf a warning glance. To Porthios, she said, “You know this rite? Why didn’t you say so sooner?”

“We had no griffons. Now we do, and I am telling you.”

It was the Lioness’s turn to feel hackles rise. She asked whether he’d ever performed the rite. He reminded her no one had, not since the days of the Kinslayer Wars, when the great demand for griffon cavalry had made it necessary.

“Were you a scholar or a warrior in Silvanesti?” asked Hytanthas, curious to know how Orexas had come by his obscure knowledge.

Porthios could hardly say he had been much more, and in Qualinesti, not Silvanesti. His throne was lost; his identity scorched away. Orexas was as good a name as any for a walking corpse.

“I was taught the rite as a youth.” Not a lie, merely an incomplete truth. “It isn’t long or complicated. We’re dealing with the minds of beasts, after all.”

Kerian snorted. She thought a great deal more of the mind of her Eagle Eye than she did of most people she knew, elf or other.